[REDUCED-PORT SURGERY]

Recently, a new concept of laparoscopic surgery called “reduced-port surgery,” which aims reducing abdominal wall destruction, has been under development. There is as yet no definitive definition for this new surgery, but in this article, we define it as aiming at less invasiveness than conventional laparoscopic surgery by reducing abdominal wall destruction. Several reported meta-analyses concluded that single-port cholecystectomy required longer operation times and had better cosmetic outcomes but that there were no differences in postoperative pain, hospital stays, and complication rates. A search of PubMed using the key words “reduced-port surgery” yielded 96 papers, with the number increasing each year, and half of those were reports from Japan. The future of reduced-port surgery is promising, and the use of this technique will spread and develop in tandem with patient demand and advances in surgical instruments. In particular, advances in instruments including robotics are vital, and contributions by Japanese surgeons and engineers are anticipated. This surgical technique may be ideal for resolving problems of safety, education, cost, curability, etc.